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Macs and iPhones have always had some of the most interesting accessories in the world of computing. From old collectibles to new products that look like old products, Apple’s fanbase has always been willing to pay for premium, well-designed products, and accessories are no exception either. I talked to my friends at Anker, TwelveSouth and Rareform and got some of the coolest, most useful products for Apple laptops and phones and compiled this short list of Christmas gift ideas – all items are below $100, and most are below $50! Continue reading →

Every year, I like to go on the hunt for awesome and unique Father’s Day gift ideas for readers. This year, Holt’s Cigar is presenting an awesome collection of really cool stuff for readers of both Simple Guy Stuff and our sister site Simple Cocktails. I’m excited to present this year’s list:

Local literature: $20-50. I have been a New Mexico native most of my life and my state pride has grown gradually. This year, I got my hands on 2 newer books published here that and distinctly New Mexican. Look into My Eyes: Nuevomexicanos por Vida, ’81-’83 (buy at Amazon) is a photo book from a very specific snapshot of time in New Mexico’s history: 1981 to 1983 and it’s an amazing mashup of hispanic and 1980s culture. ¡Órale! Lowrider: Custom Made in New Mexico (buy at Amazon) is another one of those precious snapshots of our local culture in beautiful color with great historical context of the significance of “dropping” your Chevy Impala.

Fidget spinners: $20-70. Clearly this is a fad on one saw coming, but you can now find plastic 3-pointed spinners in just about every gas station or roadside stand in this country. I wanted to illustrate what a more “fatherly” spinner looks like, so I got some spinners from UltraSpinners and Syner-EDC. UltraSpinners have a variety of spinners ranging from $20 to $150, but I stuck with their Ergo line, which has 3 options in materials and weight. The Ergo Aluminum is $20 and a lightweight but “grown-up” alternative to plastic spinners. Ergo Omega and Alpha are both brass, for $55 and $60 respectively, and only differ in weight and thickness. I also picked up a Triple Mini Spinner from Syner-EDC (pictured bottom) for $40, which offers customizable bearing caps is various materials.

Apple Watch Band: $85. Monowear makes a new and apparently very-popular Apple Watch band out of perforated leather that’s classy. They match the hardware to the watch color (a must in my book) and the band’s available in chestnut, black and grey (I got grey). As a daily Apple Watch wearer, I always love having more options to accessorize and match my tech with my clothes for the day.

Playing Cards: $5 a deck. I picked up Cocktail Party, Craft Beer, and Craft Brewers decks from Bicycle – it’s a fun way to jazz up your poker games with some “fatherly” knowledge of cocktail recipes and craft beer. Plus they cost next-to-nothing!

Scotch Whisky: $85. Scotch is particularly suited for gifts because if often comes in a gift-worthy sleeve. For this Father’s Day, I picked up The Balvenie 14-year-old Caribbean Cask, a spicy, vanilla-forward sipper that pairs beautifully with the next gift idea…..

Cigars: $5 and up. From Holt’s Cigar Company, our sponsor for this Gift Guide, we’ve got a great selection of smokes in our humidor (stay tuned for upcoming pairings at Simple Guy Stuff). For Father’s Day, Holt’s recommends the Royal Flush Super Sampler, one of many great options in their Father’s Day Cigar Deals category. Special thanks to Holt’s for their sponsorship of Simple Cocktails and Simple Guy Stuff!

Nomad Goods continues to produce a nice assortment of accessories for iPhones, Apple Watches and iPads. I had the chance to try out their Leather Charging Wallet (with built in Lightning cable) here recently.

Now I’ve got a few Apple Watch accessories to try out: their Modern Leather Strap and Pod Pro, a charger/backup battery in one.

It’s become critical to me that the hardware on an Apple Watch band actually match my watch, meaning that bands would need to be available with black or silver hardware. As you can see in the image above, Nomad really nailed it with this hardware. Many low-end band manufacturers seem to pay no attention to the fact that lots of people have black Apple Watches, and I’ve very grateful that Nomad takes care of the little details like this.

For many, this may be a minor thing, but the strong, bulky, unique hardware is my favorite part of this band. And it is available in silver, too, to match all watch hardware. There’s one other thing they did right, too: the black hardware buckle will sometimes rub off on a leather band like this one (I have a cheap band like this and that’s happened), but Nomad’s hardware has been colored in a way that prevents this.

Speaking of the leather band, this is the same stuff from the wallet that I reviewed: high-quality, Horween leather. It’s outstanding as well, and together with the thoughtful hardware, this band is well worth its $60 price.

The Pod Pro ($80) is Nomad’s solution to what seems to be an always-short battery life on our devices. Using your current Apple Watch charging cable, the Pro assembles as a 6000 mAh disc that will charge both your Watch and your iPhone. A Lightning cable is built in, so you only really need a USB micro cable to keep both devices charged. For a weekend trip, the Pod Pro is probably the only charger you’ll need.

There are only a few visible parts once the device is closed with its magnetic lid. Pictured from left above, you see the built in Lightning cable, the USB micro charging port, the battery level indicator, and the power button. The top is made from anodized aluminum and the bottom from plastic with a non-slip base.

Nomad has generously offered to give Simple Guy Stuff readers a Modern Leather Strap and a Pod Pro. Enter below to win!

Dash Wallets is rooted in several successful Kickstarter campaigns, all with the goals of creating slim, sustainable, and affordable wallets in San Francisco.

Dash never really says if they intend their wallets for front- or back-pocket use, and because of this, I’m pretty sure it’s up to you how you carry them. I had the chance to try the Dash 3.0 Saffiano Slim ($40) and the Dash 4.0 ($25) wallets.

The Dash 3.0 is a leather (vegan option available) pouch with 2 vertical pockets (see photo immediately above) and 1 horizontal pocket (see top photo). It can easily carry up to about a dozen cards and cash. I’ve been using this model to carry my business cards in my front pocket when I go to business events.

The Dash 4.0 is a vertical wallet made from both leather and stretchy material with 2 pockets on one side and 1 on the other. There’s a cutout hole for pushing your cards out easily (see above). Because of the canvas, stretchy side, this wallet holds more cards than the more rigid leather-only models, up to about 20, and I found it very comfortable to carry in my front and back pocket.

I like the idea of the canvas stretch material as it keeps the size of the wallet itself to a bare minimum, and when you’re buying a wallet for minimalism, that’s important. This wallet is less rigid than the all-leather 3.0 version.

Dash Wallets are available from dashwallets.com and range in price from about $20 to the RFID-blocking versions at about $50.

When it comes to wallets, I’m a bit of a minimalist – I usually only carry a few cards and just a little cash. I have found, though, that most “minimalist” wallets don’t have enough space for everything I want to carry, though: 3 credit cards, my driver’s license and a several business cards.

Regardless of how many times I’ve tried, though, I am not a front-pocket-wallet guy. I appreciate the size of them, but it drives me nuts to have my wallet up front all the time, even if it is small. So I’ve begun my quest for slim-but-roomy back pocket wallets, and Allett came up as an option.

Allett manufactures their wallets in San Diego from a combination of nylon and leather with the goal of slimness in mind. I got to try the Slim Original ($35) and asked my wife to try out the Slim Women’s ($45), both with leather exteriors and nylon interiors. Other options from Allett include RFID-blocking and coin-pouch wallets.

The slimness of these wallets is achieved through both smart design and slim materials. The wallets are designed as two-tier bi-folds, with 4 card pockets (pictured above) and 2 interior slots: one that matches the height of the wallet and one that’s half-height (the perfect size for bills, in fact). If you look at the top photo in this post, both wallets are completely full with cards and bills, and are still very thin. Both the men’s and women’s wallets will hold between 1 and 4-5 cards per pocket, so even if you tend to carry a lot of cards with you, these wallets will still serve you well because of the thinness of the materials themselves.

The Women’s Slim wallet, pictured above, adds two design elements and lots of color choices. The black leather wallet has teal interior vinyl and there are a total of 5 color combinations on the women’s wallets here.

As thickness of a women’s wallet is a little less critical than for men, assuming the women’s wallet will be in a purse and the men’s in a pocket. The women’s wallet adds a zippered coin pocket on the back and a magnetic closure.

I’ve had my Allett in my back pocket for about a month, and I have been really happy with it’s capacity and it’s comfort in my back pocket. Coming from a much thicker back-pocket wallet that I’d sometimes have to remove when I was in the car for long periods of time, it’s a refreshing and very well-designed product that fits the bill perfectly for us back-pocket wearers.

Based out of South Carolina, TwelveSouth makes high-quality accessories for Apple devices, including some for the Apple Watch. I got the chance to try their TimePorter and Forté accessories.

When I travel, I rarely bring additional Apple Watch bands with me – I usually just pack my charger. The TimePorter is great for me, then, because it functions as a charger, charging stand and stores several watch bands, too. The charging cable is wrapped inside the case and pressed into the lid, with a little notch to run the USB cord out of the side of the case (see above). The cable storage, band storage, and charge-through functionality makes this a really handy choice for those who travel often with their Apple Watch.

The size of an eyeglasses case, TimePorter easily fits in my carryon when I travel. Some may even consider getting a lipstick USB battery to actually charge their Watch in the case, no AC power required.

I’ll definitely be using the TimePorter for my Watch travel from now on – it’s available in white or black from Amazon here.

There are a plethora of Apple Watch stands on the market and even the TimePorter above is technically a “stand” of sorts. Nearly all available Apple Watch stands require that you use your existing magnetic charger that came with the Watch, and the TwelveSouthForté is no exception.

On the Forté, your watch can be displayed both vertically (see above) or horizontally (Nightstand Mode). There’s a curved arm that will allow you to charge your watch regardless of the type of watch band you use. Your charger magnet holds it very securely in place.

The Forté is a solid stand, too, with a heavy weighted base and stainless trim with a black leather pad over the base. Your charging cable is pressed into the back of the stand (pictured above) and fits under a plastic ring to secure it into the top. There’s very little movement on your desk or table once you’ve set it down, because of the significant weight.

TwelveSouth’s Forté retails for $59, and once you hold it in your hand, you realize this is a weighty, quality stand, and worth the cost. Even the way the stand is packaged with a red ribbon to remove it from the box says “quality.” This is a good gift idea for the holidays.

I recently upgraded from an original Apple Watch to a newer Series 1, and I’ve begun to search for truly unique and useful accessories. The majority of bands for the Watch are duplicates of Apple’s assortment of bands, but my search did lead me to an awesome type of band that’s really attractive and unique: wooden Apple Watch bands!

Wood Mark Watches out of Florida has a beautiful line of bands made from various woods, with a line of Apple Watch-specific wooden link bracelets. The materials, shown in the above image from left to right, are: black sandalwood/zebra wood, zebra wood, bamboo/black sandalwood, black sandalwood, and apple wood. The apple wood version (far right) is a limited edition that has just been released.

All bands are link-style with stainless steel mounting hardware and clasps. Bands are available from Wood Mark for both the 38mm and 42mm Watches for $79.99.

I’m happy to say that the band clasps hold firmly all day, something I have not always experienced with 3rd party link bracelets. The variety of band colors and styles is great, too, as some are more casual/everyday like the apple wood or bamboo bands, while the all-black sandalwood is classy enough for formalwear (see photo below).

It would be nice to have the option to change the hardware color (that part attaches the band to the watch) to black so that the color fits seamlessly with the Watch hardware. As with other link bracelets on the market, the hardware to size your band is included, but be extra gentle during the initial resizing process. Wood is more delicate than steel, so you’ll want to take care to avoid scratching or cracking a link in the process.

GIVEAWAY

We’ve teamed up with Wood Mark to give 5 readers of Simple Guy Stuff their own Wood Mark Apple Watch band (a $79.99 value), and it’s simple to enter. Just leave a comment on this blog post with your band style of choice and your watch size (38mm or 42mm), and you’ll be entered to win the giveaway! Note: comments have to be approved and may not show up immediately.

One entry per person. Open to U.S. residents only. We’ll draw 5 names at random from the comments on December 6, 2016, confirm your style choice, and Wood Mark will ship you your new Apple Watch band.

I’ve had the opportunity to use a unique wallet for the last few weeks: the Nomad Leather Bi-Fold iPhone Charging Wallet. Designed by Nomad and stitched by Horween Leather in Chicago, this wallet addresses one of the modern annoyances in modern life: the lack of sufficient battery power in our devices.

Inside of the Nomad wallet, there’s a lipstick-sized battery pack and an built-in lightning cable to charge your iPhone. The battery itself is a Panasonic 2400mAh, enough for a full charge on smaller iPhones and a partial charge on Plus models. When not in use, the lightning cable tucks away into a small pouch in the wallet (see the picture above).

Battery charge is shown in a series of blinks: 4 blinks for full power, 3 for 75% and so on (see photo below). It’s charged with a standard micro USB charger, which is included with the wallet.

There is a minor issue I have with the Nomad, and that has to do with the physical battery. In general, wallets are soft: their build materials and contents will flex and often re-shape themselves to your body. The battery in the Nomad is rigid, though, and while it is enclosed in leather, can be a sore spot on your backside depending on how you carry it. I found that putting it into my back pocket battery-side-up was the most comfortable way to wear it. The battery does contribute to a size increase, too: it’s about 10-20% bigger than other bi-folds, though I found it fit into all of my pockets just fine.

Sold for $149, and with a $119 slim version available from Nomad or Amazon, this is a quality, well-made leather wallet that offers a nice option for forgetful chargers or emergency situations where your phone battery dies before you can get to a charger. It’s comforting to know that you always have a battery handy if you need it, and I noted the battery holds a 100% charge for several days. I used mine mostly as a battery for emergencies, and only needed it once or twice a week, occasionally offering it to a friend whose battery was almost dead while we were out and about.

The Nomad Wallet is a thoughtful device for our modern world. It’s built in a classic form by a trusted, talented leather company, yet it contains a very modern and handy addition that’s just as valuable as a credit card these days: a battery.